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| Paper 53 |
First of thanks for the get well wishes. We are both feeling much better, although not 100%. The last week has seemed like a month and I am hoping to get back into full creative mode soon. I have been starting on some appliqué exercises for my City and Guilds, but my concentration is poor at the moment. Meanwhile I have been exploring drawing on my iPad. I have been using two apps;
Paper 53, which is free with a mixing palette upgrade for peanuts, and
Brushes which is also free but you can buy a layers add-on for £1.99 which I haven't got - yet. I have also got a cheap stylus as I found using using my finger didn't give me the control I wanted. I thought I would share these explorations with you, in case you're interest. You will have to excuse lots of sketches of Marvin as I have mainly done these from my armchair in the evenings and he sits next to me, making my perfect model. Unfortunately he is nearly always in the same pose - asleep!
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| Paper 53 |
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| Paper 53 |
I started by using 'Paper' - this has a pencil, pen, felt tip, fibre point and watercolour brush tools. You cannot vary the width or zoom in and out. However it is great for quick sketches. I like to draw with the pencil tool and then fill in with the watercolour - this gives you depth of colour, but it is a broad line. You can take colour out with an 'eraser' which is broad, or by drawing with white or a paler colours to add texture.
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Paper 53
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However I got rather frustrated by not being able to work up any detail so decided to download the Brushes app. This is 100% more complex. It has loads of brushes, each one variable, an infinite mix colour palette and colour sampler so you can match colours and you can import pictures to work on.
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| Paper 53 plus Brushes |
So this one of Marvin was started in Paper and then imported into Brushes - I just couldn't have got the detail on his tongue with Paper.
The drawback with the more sophisticated Brushes is that it loses some of the spontaneity of the simple program. This face was done by starting with a black page and then removing the colour. I like to draw faces when watching the television - they end up being an amalgamation of characters.
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| Brushes |
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| Brushes |
'Marvin Dreaming' is an experiment in mixing, and below an attempt at a landscape copied from one of my photographs.
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| Brushes |
The main purpose of this is to refine my drawing skills, but of course I also have to conquer the electronic sketch. Nothing will replace paper and paint, but it is good at making you look and analyse colour and shape.
Just to prove something else is going on...
some stitching in progress - more of that later.
The sun is shining here at last, but it is very chilly.
I do hope you have a good week,
Jill
